HOLLYWOOD—As Marc Perry, training guru for the office-bound, so inspiringly points out, you embrace one single change like learning to leave the cola, and your open yourself to massive changes over time.

At the end of Day 1 to lose 30 Pounds in 30 Days you received an ultimatum to drop sodas, now and for the next 30 days. Here’s the lowdown: Each can of cola contains almost 10 teaspoons of sugar. If you drink a can of cola a day, it’s half a 5-pound bag of sugar every month. Which translates into 30 plus pounds of sugar per year; you eliminate soda, you eliminate all that sugar.

I made a great sacrifice for this article. I actually did the homework, researching and dramatizing cola’s nutritional label. Have you noticed? It’s a funny sidelight, folks, how when the soda and candy companies divulge their ingredients they suddenly get all metric on us. Drug dealers and candy companies. Just maybe the purveyors of blow and candy prefer people to be kept and the dark and measure their products in grams.

Me? I gotta google the data and go back to math class just to learn that a single Reese’s peanut butter cup has about one teaspoon of fat. A teaspoon something I can see and feel, as opposed to grams.

Anyhow, check out “Shocking Facts About Coke” on Marc Perry’s super informative and visual Built Lean website. One shocking fact you won’t see there is, of course, people do like cola. BUT. . . on the 30 pound in 30 days plan, cold turkey is the sole option. Fortunately, it brings added benefits: you may be pleasantly surprised to have less cavities the next time you go to the dentist and, as a result, reduce your dental bills. Giving up soda is win-win-win.

Here’s a final thing, and get out your highlighter for this: stick religiously to your mealtimes. This is a fitness-maintaining practice equally, if not more, important that what we eat. For the 30 pounds in 30 days, give yourself the three squares, perhaps one snack scheduled into the day. That’s how I enshrined my midday snack. I’d be coming off the Fruit before Noon and treat myself to a hot black cup of coffee with almonds or walnuts. Oops! I know that’s breaking my no-beverage while eating rule, but nobody said I’m perfect.

To recap:

--Fruit before noon

--No soda

--Stick religiously to mealtimes

We’re always seeking to implement these habits most of the time. And for those of you who seek to attain the accelerated weight loss of 30 pounds in 30 days, the more rigid and demanding you are with yourself, the more dramatic results you will see.

Humorist Grady Miller is the author of “Lighten Up Now: The Grady Diet,” available on Kindle. He can be reached at grady.miller@canyon-news.com.